


Hold Me Tight

by SilentStudies



Series: Love Is Not Over [1]
Category: K-pop, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Fantasy, M/M, Magic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-08-11 01:49:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16466405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentStudies/pseuds/SilentStudies
Summary: Namjoon is miserable but brilliant. While trying to transfer colleges, he becomes introduced to a world that he has only ever dreamed of, but at what cost?





	1. Questionable Events

**Author's Note:**

> This was greatly inspired by The Magicians by Lev Grossman. It will be following that storyline, but with a twist.

Namjoon did a magic trick. No one noticed. He's in the grocery store bagging food items. His interview with a new college is in thirty minutes; he's nervous. Namjoon watches the clock tick until it hits twelve and he immediately books it to the back room to take off his work clothes and into a smart outfit he picked just for this interview. 

Transferring colleges is a long process that Namjoon found himself in begrudgingly. But his options were limited. It was either be bullied or move away. And he'd rather move away. Luckily his GPA is high enough for him to be eligible to be interviewed for a tier one school but the interview today will determine whether he gets in or not. He has a lot riding on this interview, and he can't mess it up.

With fifteen minutes left on the clock to get to the interview at some man's house, Namjoon pulls up the directions on his phone and sprints through the streets to be able to get there on time. He doesn't care about his sweat, and he's not worried about how he'll smell because he has deodorant and body lotion in his bag, along with a comb and a small mirror.

When Namjoon arrives at the house, the front door is slightly open. The house is in an affluent neighborhood, but it still doesn't seem like a safe neighborhood to leave the door open. Namjoon pushes the door and enters the house.

The inside of the house is seemingly in order. Namjoon gawks at the staircase before looking around on the bottom floor. The room to his left seems to be a study, on the desk, there's an envelope with his name on it. Namjoon doesn't touch it, and he looks up to the bookcase. Namjoon walks along the bookcase, skimming over the book titles until he trips over something. He's deep into the room, in a place he couldn't see from the doorway. Looking down, he sees a hand. Namjoon screams.

Three minutes later the paramedics are in the house. Namjoon is sitting outside the house on the doorstep, waiting to give his statement. He hears cameras taking pictures of the scene, and he can't help but shiver as the paramedics carry out the body of his interviewer. There goes his chance to transfer schools. Namjoon starts thinking about maybe killing himself, but he knows he has come too far to give up. But the thought is so very appealing. Namjoon sighs and rests his head in his hands. 

"Excuse me, Namjoon Kim?" A paramedic calls his name. Namjoon stands up and looks for the owner of the voice and is met with a woman beckoning him from the doorway. He feels extremely reluctant to enter, but he follows the lady inside anyways. 

The lady leads him back into the study, Namjoon trails slowly behind her, very reluctant to enter the room again. Luckily she just stops at the desk and picks up the manila envelope that he saw earlier.

"My name is Jane," she holds out her hand, "Nice to meet you." Namjoon shakes it lightly and offers something he hopes is a smile. "I think you should take this." She holds out the envelope for Namjoon to take and Namjoon reluctantly takes it.

"Isn't this something from the scene? Should I really be taking it?" Namjoon asks, gingerly fingering the envelope, he can't deny the curiosity bubbling within himself. 

"There's an address inside that may be important for you," Jane replied nonchalantly.

Namjoon eyes her suspiciously, "Okay, I guess I will. Are you going to take my statement?" 

Observing her more closely, she doesn't seem like a paramedic, but Namjoon couldn't give a good reason as to why not. Namjoon twists his lips in thought but catches himself and just presses his lips together. Jane smiles at him, and he doesn't really think that this is a situation where you would smile.

"We don't need your statement; you're free to go. There are cameras throughout the house so you should be fine as long as you didn't do anything," Jane says with a mischievous glint in her eyes. 

Namjoon suddenly wants to leave. Not that he didn't already want to leave, but the urge is stronger now. He gives Jane another smile that is more like a grimace and walks out where he's finally able to breathe. Today was the first time he ever saw a dead body, and he hopes it's the last. 

After taking a deep breath, Namjoon opens the envelope to see a thick stack of papers inside, and a small card as well, all held together by a paperclip. Namjoon takes out the card and reads the address on it. His name is written on the card in blue ink as well. 

Namjoon thinks as he starts walking away from the house. He took off work early to be able to do this interview, and he has nothing else to do for the rest of the day, would it really hurt to take a look at this address? He sees no problem with at least looking around the area. Namjoon decides to go check out the address. 

The walk there is relatively quiet aside from the directions on his phone. It makes Namjoon anxious that there's no one else on the streets near the place. From what Namjoon could tell, it's only a small park in the middle of the town that no one goes to, from the state of abandon it's in. Namjoon enters the park. If it weren't so far, Namjoon would make it one of his haunts. 

Something moves in the brush, Namjoon can hear it. Namjoon walks over to where he heard the noise. He pushes the leaves out of the way, and he follows a progressively loud noise as he passes through the brush. His phone starts ringing, and he pauses to look at it but sees that it's a number he doesn't know. Namjoon lets his phone ring and continues following the noise until suddenly it's silent. Looking up from the ground, where he had been looking to not trip over something, he sees a gate. Looking beyond it, his eyes widen in amazement. His breath catches in his throat, and he gingerly reaches out to touch the gate. He has no idea where he is, but he isn't sure if he even wants to go back after seeing something like this.

It's a college campus. Looking behind him, Namjoon no longer sees the brush that he pushed through to get to the gate. Namjoon has no idea where he could be; he's never seen something so green in Brooklyn before, not even in the parks. This place is flourishing with greenery. Birds are chirping, and everything seems like he conjured this place up somehow. 

Turning back to the gate, he sees someone opening it and eyeing Namjoon as the man beckons him through the gate. Namjoon follows the man through the gate, and once it's shut, he turns towards Namjoon and sticks his hand out.

"Namjoon Kim?" The man asks. Namjoon nods his head and shakes the man's hand.

"Welcome to Brakebills College; I am Seokjin, nice to meet you," Seokjin says, straightening out his clothes.

"Where am I?" Namjoon asks, looking around once again then stopping back on Seokjin.

"Upstate New York," Seokjin says with a shrug, "Where are you coming from?"

"From Brooklyn," Namjoon says, cogs turning in his brain as to how he went from Brooklyn to Upstate New York. "Is this place magic?" He asks with a small voice.

"Yes, isn't that obvious?" Seokjin says as he starts walking. "Follow me; I'm going to take you to meet Dean Foggs."

Namjoon follows after Seokjin, looking around in amazement. He always knew that magic existed, but for someone to say it out loud makes it even more real in Namjoon's mind.

If the paramedic told him to check out the address, then does she know about magic too? What about the interviewer? Namjoon has too many questions that he hopes this "Dean Foggs" could answer.


	2. Exams and Surprises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, I spent 5 hours straight writing this and I think I will never proofread it because I'm tired. I hope everything looks okay. And with that enjoy the chapter! This is heavily based off the second chapter in The Magicians, please forgive me if I omitted anything that you particularly liked about the chapter.

Seokjin walks without looking behind him, so Namjoon makes sure to keep up with him. Namjoon's too nervous to talk to him, everything is too much to process, and his thoughts are in overdrive. 

As they walk, Namjoon loses track of the way he came from after many twists and turns. Seokjin is effortlessly walking with poise and confidence that Namjoon wishes he could have. Seokjin is dressed in expensive clothing that fit his body perfectly. 

"So do you live here?" Namjoon asks in an attempt to start a conversation. He tries to keep out his breathlessness from his voice and isn't sure if he managed, but from what he could see of Seokjin's expression, he doesn't seem as if he minds. 

"At Brakebills? Yes, I do," Seokjin response curtly. "Please don't talk to me, I'm trying not to get attached."

Namjoon nods even though he doesn't quite understand what Seokjin meant by that. Seokjin pauses in front of a door, which made Namjoon realize that they were no longer outside. The door is intricately crafted. And looking around, he sees the aesthetic of the brown wood combined with the darker wood with paintings of the forest and what little Namjoon remembered seeing when they were outside, the labyrinth and the perfectly trimmed hedges.

Seokjin clears his throat, bringing Namjoon's attention back to him.

"You need to go through this door, and Dean Foggs will answer your questions," Seokjin turns to him and softly touches his shoulder, "He isn't as intimidating as he appears to be, you'll be fine."

With that Seokjin walks off, disappearing around a corner. Namjoon is suddenly faced with the fact that he has no idea where he is, and this might just be a dream, that he passed out after seeing the dead body. He takes a deep breath and opens the door.

A man is sitting at a grand desk; bookshelves line the walls, there are globes and glasses, intricate items placed carefully on the shelves. The man cleared his throat and gestured to a chair in front of the desk, and Namjoon sits nervously. The man, presumably Dean Foggs, leans forward in his chair to look at Namjoon. Namjoon feels vulnerable under this man's gaze.

"Welcome Namjoon Kim to Brakebills College, I suppose you've heard of us? I'm Henry Foggs, in charge of recruitment and the student body here. You may call me Dean," the man says. Namjoon nods in acknowledgment and Dean continues, "You've been offered a Preliminary Examination here, do you accept?"

Namjoon had a whole speech prepared for the interview today, and he felt pretty eloquent when he woke up this morning, but the first thing that comes out of his mouth is, "Huh?"

"We are behind schedule Mr. Kim; it's a yes or no question."

Embarrassment burns through him, and Namjoon's mind quickly scrambles through the pros and cons of whether or not to go through with this exam that Dean mentioned. He can only assume that it's for this college. And Namjoon has a feeling that if he said no, then this whole dream, if it even is that, would be over and he would be stuck going to that college until he ultimately drops out. Namjoon closes his eyes to relieve a building headache, then slowly nods his head, "Yes, I would like to take the exam."

"Wonderful, follow me. You're the last one I believe," Dean says. He didn't seem too particularly pleased when he said that and Namjoon cringed wondering if that was because of him.

Namjoon clumsily stands up and follows the man. Dean leads him through several more hallways and up two flights of stairs until they reach a set of double doors. When Dean opens it, Namjoon could feel hundreds of sets of eyes settle on him, and Namjoon has to take a deep breath to quell his anxiety. 

The room was huge, filled with countless sets of desks and a person at each one except for one at the very end. All of the people in there looked younger than Namjoon, and he was immediately reminded of why he was here, possibly trying to get into a new college. There are teens with mohawks and punk-like clothing. There's a long stretch of a whiteboard on the wall with little posters of inspirational quotes hanging on them by magnets. The room seemed too big to be on what he thought was a small building, but Namjoon guesses that this might be magic. The walls have wallpaper pasted perfectly on them, three walls of white design and then one wall of green. Namjoon remembers reading something about how a wall of color in a classroom promotes critical thinking, but he isn't sure if that's a real thing.

There are all kinds of teens there, but there are a few people who look to be around Namjoon's age. There is a person in a wheelchair; there are people who are missing arms, there's a person with tattoos all over their back, and a really hot dude wearing nothing but a vest and shorts with chiseled abs. Namjoon feels ashamed that he thought of that when he's in an anxious situation. 

Looking over at Dean, he sees him motion to the empty chair. Namjoon obediently walks over and sits down at his seat. There's a test booklet with his name on it. When he looks up, Dean Foggs is gone. Looking back down, Namjoon flips the page and reads the instructions. It mentions that there's no time limit and Namjoon is thankful because the booklet seems to be thick. Namjoon flips to the next page, picks up a pen left near the booklet, and starts the test.

The test is comprised of mathematical and reading comprehension stuff that he already knows from his years at college. Then Namjoon reaches the point where the test gets weird. It asks personal questions and random questions that Namjoon somehow knows the answer to them. Namjoon wasn't expecting to take a test today, and he doesn't feel prepared. There was a passage for the reading where it asked him to translate a passage to a made-up language, and then write it in Shakespearian language. It was confusing, and Namjoon knows that he probably wouldn't do well on the test. It also made him write in his made-up language about an imaginary kingdom, then translate it back into English. Honestly, Namjoon had no idea what was going on; the test kept changing the passages, so it was hard to determine what he was doing, questions disappeared and reappeared as he moved through the test. Namjoon was just trying to get to the end of this seemingly infinite paged booklet.

When he got to the very last page, many people had already finished, and he was one of the few that was finishing up. His ass hurt, his back hurt, his head hurt, everything hurts. The instructions said to bring the test to the front of the room. Namjoon stood up on wobbly legs, and the chair scraped against the floor, and Namjoon made his way up slowly, taking in his surroundings and the odd circumstances once again. Namjoon shook his head dismay of what he got himself into. 

Once he handed his test to the lady sitting at a long table in the front of the room, he was directed to another room. Namjoon didn't even notice that door before. Looking behind himself before entering the room, he sees no one testing nor the lady he handed his test to anymore. Namjoon enters the next room that has at least fifty people in it. Most, Namjoon could tell, are definitely younger than him. It makes Namjoon feel weird that he's testing for a new school at the entry level when he was almost graduating at his other college. 

Dean walks in, and a small crowd gathers around him, and he makes his way to the front of the crowd. Namjoon feels pathetic, being so nervous being around teens, he is an adult, he shouldn't feel scared. He feels as if one of the teens might take his place from being admitted and he'll be forced to go back. Namjoon shakes his head.

"I'm delighted to inform you that you will be moving on to the next stage of testing," Dean says, addressing the room. "This stage will be conducted on an individual basis by the team of the college faculty. While you wait, feel free to enjoy refreshments and talk amongst yourselves."

When Namjoon looks around once more, he could only see about twenty-four people left in the room. Namjoon's too anxious to care anymore. 

There's a sound of glass chiming from the other side of the room, Namjoon looks, and there are jugs of different drinks lined up on a long table with pretty table cloth, small appetizers on the table near the edge. Namjoon cautiously walks to the table to pour himself a drink of water and eat a small bite of a fudge brownie.

Someone clears their throat, and Namjoon looks to find a butler of some sort with a tray with a sandwich and fruit salad on it. Namjoon takes the tray then finds himself near a table with decorative chairs around it. Most of the potential students are seated and eating the same thing Namjoon was given. Namjoon has an allergy to shellfish, so he cautiously lifts the bread to check and sighs in relief when it is just turkey. 

Namjoon devours the sandwich, not realizing how hungry he was. But he guesses that not eating lunch before or after the interview he was supposed to have would be the cause of his hunger. 

Just as Namjoon was about to get up to get a drink of water from the table, a glass appeared to the left of his plate. Magic seems weirdly convenient, but Namjoon won't question it, he has other things to concentrate on and time seems to be passing slowly to where he has plenty of time to think.

The others are conversing, exchanging hometowns and their test questions. Namjoon turns to his side to see the hot guy he saw earlier when he first entered the testing room. When he looks up from the guy's abs, he sees him smirking with a twinkle in his big eyes that seems either naughty or innocent, but Namjoon doesn't know him enough to be sure. Namjoon's too shy to talk to anyone, and he is still feeling weird about being grouped with people many years younger than him.

Namjoon finishes his lunch and stands up to find the others as they're no longer around the table. Instead of the room with the others, he finds himself in front of a door. Anxiety hits him like a train, but he knows he must pass this exam. 

Namjoon opens the door to find a stern woman in her forties with medium length dark hair. The windows are tall in the room, and Namjoon can see the lawn that he first came across many hours earlier, but Namjoon isn't sure what time it is since he hasn't checked his phone since he got here. 

The thick wooly carpet feels nice under his feet after walking around on the hard floor all day. Two comfortable chairs are facing each other in the center of the room with a thick, beautifully shaded wooden table in between them. 

The woman gestures to the chair across from her and Namjoon nervously sits down.

"I understand that you like to do magic tricks, Namjoon," the lady says. Namjoon tenses and squeezes his hands together. "Why don't you show me some?"

Namjoon does enjoy doing magic tricks. His obsession over it started when he began college, as a way to distract himself from the stress he was experiencing. It is inspired by his reading habits, and especially by his favorite book. Namjoon spent many depressing hours shuffling cards and flipping coins while listening to music on his iPhone. He watched shows that went behind the scenes with impressive magic tricks, and people demonstrating impressive magic tricks. Magic isn't romantic; it's grim and serious. He worked his ass off to become good at it.

There was a store near his apartment that sold magic supplies and music junk that he bought and spent so much money on the stupidest things. In his second year of college, he was able to do the Scotch and Soda, and the tricky one-handed Charlier cut, and he could juggle the Mills Mess pattern with three balls and sometimes four. He earned a little respect at his college for being able to do the tricks, but then the bullying began. Namjoon shakes his head. He doesn't want to think about that.

On the table, there are several items. Namjoon picks up the cards first. He is vain about shuffling, so he broke out a faro shuffle rather than the standard riffle just in case the woman in front of him knew the difference. And also to show his skill because it's ridiculously hard to do the faro.

He ran through his usual routine, which was to show off as many different skills as possible. False cuts, shuffles, sleights, lifts, forces, passes. In the time between tricks, he waterfalled the cards from hand to hand. Due to his nervousness, the sound of his shuffling sounds clumsy in this quiet and beautiful room, with such a dignified woman in front of him. 

The woman watched his performance steadily, obediently choosing a card when asked, showing no surprise when he recovered it from the middle of a thoroughly shuffled deck, his shirt pocket, or thin air. 

Namjoon gets tired of the cards, but he tries not to show it as he gently sets it back on the table in front of him. He picks up the coins and starts once again.

He had no props, cups, or folded handkerchiefs, so he stuck to palms and passes, catches and flourishes. The woman watched in silence for a minute, then silently reaches across the table and touches his arm.

"Do that one again," she commands with a soft voice. Namjoon's anxiety rises to tremendous levels, but he calmly as possible does it again.

She stops him in the middle.

"This part—there's a mistake."

"Where?" Namjoon frowned, thinking about how he presented it to her, "That's how you do it."

She purses her lips and shakes her head.

The woman gracefully picks three nickels from the stack and without hesitation she performed the Wandering Nickel flawlessly. Namjoon couldn't stop staring at her small, limber hands. Her movements were smoother and more precise than any professional Namjoon has seen.

She stopped in the middle.

"Do you see where the second coins must go from hand-to-hand? You need a reverse pass, holding it like this. Come around here so you can see," she says. Namjoon shakily stands and walks around the table.

Her hands are smaller than Namjoon's, but the nickel vanished between her fingers. She does the move slowly for him, forwards and backward, breaking it down in small steps and clearing enunciating each step.

"That's what I'm doing," Namjoon says hesitantly.

"Show me."

He does it, but then the lady grabs his wrist to stop him mid-pass.

"Now, where is the second coin?"

He held his hand out with his palms up. Namjoon stares curiously down at his hands, and there's no coin..? The coin isn't there. He flips his hands over, wiggles his fingers, looks at the table and floor. But he can't find the coin. Did she take it when he wasn't looking? When he looks up at the lady, she's beaming at him. Namjoon is sure that he grimaced rather than smiling back.

"This is what I thought," she says as she stands up. "Thank you, Namjoon. I will send in the next examiner."

Namjoon feels his heart sink. Did he not pass?

 

 

For the rest of the afternoon, professors came in and out the door. Namjoon is sure that he was dreaming at this point, a dream with no meaning. Each person gave them their unique test for Namjoon, and he did it carefully. His mind felt fried. First a written test, and now a test to see if he could untie cords and draw maps of the campus that he'd seen since he had gotten here. More people and even weirder tasks then finally the door shut and didn't open again. 

The testing is over is what Namjoon is assuming, so he sits down in the chair and relaxes. Looking out the window, he can see a garden and the setting sun. Namjoon rubbed his face with his hands then rests his head on the table. It feels like it might implode and he's so tired from this "testing" that he had to do. 

Suddenly it occurs to Namjoon that he's been here with no contact to anyone for a long while. He takes his phone out of his bag and taps the screen; it's only five o'clock. No one cares about him in the outside world; he has no friends, no family, nothing. But if this were a dream, it would be around now that he would wake up.

Namjoon hears talking outside the door, progressively becoming louder.

"...I'm not sure I care about either way."

There was a muffled response.

"If we don't have a Quorum we'll send them home, skip a year. Nothing will make me happier. We can rebuild the observatory, and we can turn the school into a nursing home for senile old professors; we have enough of those. "

Something inaudible again.

"There is a Twentieth, Melanie. We go through this every year, and we will empty every college, high school, middle school, juvenile detention center until we find them, or it. And if there isn't, then I will happily resign, and everything will be your problem. I can't think of anything that would make me happier right now."

Namjoon just noticed that the door is open slightly, cracked open allowing him a small peek into the hallway. His first examiner, the nimble-fingered lady, near the entrance to the room. Namjoon is just about to get up to ask if the examination is over, but then the door closes. Namjoon feels restless; he wants to leave. He was adventurous enough today, and he feels adventured-out. 

The room is almost dark. Namjoon looks for a light switch but can't find one. Thinking back, he hasn't seen a single electronic device since he got here—no lamps, phones or clocks. He's also getting hungry again. His one bit of a fudge brownie, sandwich, and fruit salad isn't enough to tide him over into the evening. Namjoon walks over to the window where it was lighter, and observes the age of the window; the glass is wiggly with age and slightly browned from the sun.

Is he the last one? What was taking so long? The sky is a pretty burning orange melting into red and black. Namjoon watches as the sky turns into black, and watches the twinkling stars in the sky. The Gogh stars that would have been invisible in Brooklyn is visible, not invisible due to light pollution. He wondered how upstate they were.

Without warning, the door banged open, and the Dean walked in, talking over his shoulder at someone behind him.

Namjoon is too surprised to listen to what the conversation is, but Dean Foggs sits down on the chair that the examiners were sitting on however long ago.

"...Bring some Goddamned candles in too!"

The Dean turns to him and smiles, "Hello, Namjoon," he says pleasantly, "Please sit."

Namjoon walks over and sits down on the chair he was occupying for several hours today already.

Then the examiner professors that came in and out of the room for the testing filed into the room. They formed lines along the walls, packed themselves into the room, necks craning to look at him, whispering to one another. The hot guy with just a vest and shorts enters the room as well. Namjoon's eyes shamefully rake over his body.

"We should do this in the observatory next year. Pearl, you come around here." The woman who made him draw maps steps forward.

"Now," he said when everyone was inside. "Namjoon. Sit please."

Namjoon was already sitting when he said this. Namjoon scooches his chair forward towards the table. Dean Foggs takes a fresh pack of cards out from his jacket pocket, plastic wrap still on the cards, and a stack of nickels. He sets them on the table and Namjoon stares at it. His social anxiety is so bad with all these people watching him right now.

"All right, let's get to it. Namjoon, show us some magic," Dean says, clapping his hands together. He then sits back in his chair and folds his arms.

Haven't they already done this part? Namjoon tries to keep his expression calm, but he's freaking out inside. In front of all these people? He was perfect one-on-one, but all these people watching him is making his anxiety reach the ultimate level. 

Namjoon sighs and grabs the brand new cards and unwraps their package. The fumbling of his fingers to pull the plastic off sounds in the silent room. Many eyes fixated on him as he does so. 

He feels himself disassociate as he dutifully riffled and bridged them, riffled and bridged. He searches his brain for a trick he hasn't done yet today; someone coughs.

He barely started his routine when Fogg stopped him.

"No, no-no-no-no-no." Foggs chuckled unkindly. "Not like that. I want to see your _real magic_.

Namjoon takes a deep breath and searches Fogg's face for the humor he had seen earlier, but it seems to be gone and replaced with ultimate expectation and anticipation.

"I don't really get what you mean," Namjoon says slowly and hesitantly in the silence with all these people watching. "What do you mean by 'real magic.'"

"Well, I don't know," Foggs says, shooting a glance at all the professors, "I don't know what I mean. You tell me what I mean."

Namjoon mindlessly shuffled the cards, stalling for time. He honestly doesn't know what to do. He would do anything they want him to do instead of having them watch him suffer. This is it; he's coming to an end. So this is what failing a magic test feels like. Namjoon feels disappointed. He looks around the room, but he only sees blank faces or people avoiding his gaze.

He feels himself shrinking in his seat, his heart shriveling up. It's reminding him of the people who stood by and watched him get bullied. He isn't mentally prepared for a situation like this. This is it, the test he cannot pass. Was it over? Should he just get up and leave? He can't do this anymore.

"Stop fucking with us, Namjoon!" Foggs shouted. He snaps his fingers. "Come on! Wake up!"

Foggs reached across the table and grabbed Namjoon's hands roughly. Namjoon feels himself cower, the touch being a shock. He was moving Namjoon's fingers, physically forcing them into positions that they didn't want to be in.

"Like this," he was saying. "Like _this_."

"Okay, stop," Namjoon said. He tried pulling his hands away. "Stop, please." He's starting to tear up, voice shaking.

But Foggs didn't stop. The rest of the people shift uncomfortably in the room, and Namjoon faintly hears someone talking, but all he can focus on is the pain in his fingers and the crushing grip on them. 

Foggs kept on working Namjoon's hands. He bent Namjoon's fingers back, stretching them apart so that the webs of his fingers burned. Light seems to flash between their hands.

"I said stop it!" Namjoon jerks his hands away.

It was surprising how good the anger felt compared to all the anxiety he was having all day. It was an emotion to grab on to, something to distract him from his fear of being a failure in front of an audience. He's had enough with today; he wants today to end. He'll go back to the college; he'll report his bullies to the police. He's done with this. Namjoon has reached his limit.

Foggs was talking again, but Namjoon isn't listening anymore. He had started to recite something under his breath, something he has heard many times before, but it wasn't in English, it was from the foreign language he had invented earlier during the exam. He speaks this language fluently, with no accent that Namjoon had imagined for it. 

Namjoon stopped mindlessly shuffling the cards, when did they reappear in his hands anyway? There was no going back. Everything seemed to be in slow motion as if he were underwater. But he wasn't underwater, everyone else was. Namjoon feels the cards leave his hands; he sees them float in the air then shoot towards the table. He's making a house of cards. All of them line up perfectly. It formed in as the model of the building he was in, and then a clock tower he saw briefly but hadn't thought about. How did he remember that? There are no longer cards in his hands, all of them now on the table, in a perfect house of cards. Namjoon gapes at his hands, looking between them and the cards on the table.

The room seems to still, everyone seems frozen in place, but Namjoon knows that time is no longer slowed. He can feel it. All the hairs on Namjoon's arms are standing up; he has goosebumps. Dean Foggs watches him as Namjoon lightly blows on the house of cards. They fall into a perfect deck. Namjoon spreads the deck. All of the cards are Queens, all standard suits, but then there were different colors. Yellow, orange, green, purple. The Queen of Horns, the Queen of Clocks, the Queen of Bees, the Queen of Books. Some were clothed, and others were naked. Some of them had the first lady who's tested him's face, and the others had the paramedic. 

Dean Foggs watched Namjoon intently. Everyone was watching him. Namjoon squares the deck then rips the cards apart makes confetti out of them. Namjoon gives no shits about the cards anymore. He feels faint, and his hands are glowing. Everyone flinches except Dean when he throws the confetti into the air.

Foggs stands up; his chair falls backward.

"Tell me where I am," Namjoon says softly, "Tell me what I'm doing here."

Namjoon slams his hands on the table.

Foggs didn't move. Namjoon involuntarily sniffs.

"Well now," the Dean said finally. He removed a neatly folded handkerchief from his pocket and patted his forehead. "I think we can all agree that was a Pass."

Somebody—the guy who made him untie knots—puts a reassuring hand on Namjoon's back. And the audience applauds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I died inside while writing this chapter. It's the longest chapter I've ever written in my life. Hoped you enjoyed! Please come talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/beautyjoonie). Please, please leave comments and kudos. It really speeds up the process of writing if I see that people actually want to read it. Thank you for reading, I'll leave my other links below.
> 
> [tumblr](https://beautyjoonie.tumblr.com)|[wordsprint](https://www.mywriteclub.com/beta/writers/SilentStudies)


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